Hope and Action (Hope vs. Action?)

NYC, London, Sacramento, over the past decade. So many more where these came from, so many more that are still waiting to be taken.

“It appears to be the same rotten old wheel that keeps this country churning:

Oppression, hatred, cruelty, and fear.

We are hanging in there, tiptoeing around, then suddenly jumping full force

With our Doc Martens into the middle of it.

It’s either hide in the shadows and hope for the best or be the change you want to be for your children.

It won’t happen for us, but we can do it for the next generations.

If we don’t maintain some kind of semblance of hope there wouldn’t be any point in living anymore.

So hope pushes us forward, but reality makes it clear that Hope alone won’t save the day.

And if we don’t fight then we are no more than cowards really.

This world is so much bigger than a bar, a city, a country.

This world is so much bigger than the individual.”

(Excerpt from a work in progress with a working name of “Belonging”. It may or may not see the day).

How Can I Help From Outside the US?

Over the past few days quite a few of my friends and acquaintances outside of the country have asked how they can help reunite migrant children with their families. I understand that it can often be hard to navigate through the sheer amount of information and links that are shared with us via different sources, and US legislation is often hard enough for citizens to wrap their heads around, let alone those who live in other countries.

This is what has been happening recently.

Before I go into more detail on US immigration issues below and lose you, here are the ways you can help from abroad:

1). Join a protest in your city in your country, or organize one. For example, a friend of mine just protested in front of the US Embassy in Wellington, NZ. There are massive demonstrations planned in the UK in July when Trump visits.

2). Continue to talk about the terrible things that the US administration is doing in terms of human rights. There are many of them, so feel free to pick the one that affects you the most. But don’t stop sharing, discussing, and talking about these major issues. Children who are being ripped from their parents is something that we cannot allow to be normalized. We know what happens next. Black kids being shot in the back by law enforcement is another. While news outlets have been focused on family separation another unarmed black teen, Antwon Rose, was shot in the back by a police officer this week.

Here are some news outlets that I find helpful when it comes to sifting through the news, but of course you can use your own: The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Shaun King

3). Donate to different charities that are raising money to pay for the bonds and legal representation of those who are currently detained and separated from their children. Bonds go between $1,500 to upwards of $10,000 so every little bit counts. RAICES is one of these organizations who are trustworthy, and have hit the ground running. KIND help protect migrant children, whether they arrived with parents or unaccompanied. There are quite a few others listed in this article here and here.

The fastest way for parents to get out of detention centers in order to search for their kids if is their bail is posted.

4). Sign petitions. A friend was concerned because she thought that she wasn’t allowed to sign an ACLU petition because she isn’t here in the US. I told her that I sign petitions and contact my representatives all the time band I am not American. Sign away!

Here are some good ones:

• ACLU – Separating Families is Inhumane
• Stop Separating Families – Amnesty International
• Change.org – Keep Families Together
• ActionAid UK

5). You can email Trump if you want to get a load off your chest here, but honestly, I doubt he reads anything that isn’t less than 280 characters long anyway.

6). If you speak any Meso-American indigenous languages such as Zapotec, Nahua, Ma’am, Quich’e, Maya, Mixe, Mixteco - not Spanish), contact RAICES to volunteer your skills as this can be done remotely.

7). Follow activists such as Shaun King, Allison Brettschneider, Linda Sarsour, Women's March, Cosecha, United We Dream, Moveon.org - they can guide you on how to help and share information.

In a nutshell the current president based a lot of his campaign on cracking down on immigration from the southern border and from countries where the main religion is Muslim. He also promised to build a wall along the southern border to “protect” US citizens from the people that he seems to think are running in droves across the border every day. Obviously anyone in their right minds knows that his rhetoric is false, ridiculous, and disgusting, but unfortunately many people believe it. Trump and his sidekicks are white supremacists and are working hard on implementing the promises they made in 2016. For the past year Congress has been in a deadlock on immigration reform, with the Republicans holding first the Dreamers, and now migrant minors, hostage. Most of the Democrats (currently in minority) refuse to pass hardline bills that include sections such as funding a border wall, and ending family immigration processes that currently exist (what Trump likes to call “chain migration”). So while these bills keep getting shut down and discarded, Trump and his cronies try to find loopholes by implementing new policies such as the recent “zero tolerance” policy. And while he signed an Executive Order this week to end the separation of families at the border, it hid some other dark new policies that we need to continue to fight. In addition to this, the thousands of children who have already been separated from their parents have not been reunited with them, and no one can tell us if they will ever be.

The immigration system in this country is a huge mess, and a mess that the government profits from, whether it be from the millions they recoup in immigration fees, the billions they collect in taxes from undocumented immigrants, or from the private prisons where they detain immigrants for months on end for the sole misdemeanor of crossing the border illegally. Having lived here for well over a decade on a temporary visa, undocumented, and finally with a green card, I have seen the system in and out and I know what it’s like to live in the shadows, on the edge of my seat fearing deportation. I still breathe a sigh of relief when I come back into the country without being sent into the secondary room for interrogation.

But I have never had to fear my children being taken from me when I leave the house (although I do nowadays because I know where this administration is heading). I am not running from violence, abuse, and/or poverty. I can’t stop thinking of these children screaming for their parents, thrown into cages, of the parents, ripped away from their little children, some still exclusively breastfeeding. Who does that? Evil does that. If you didn’t believe it before you had better believe it now.

You can read more of my immigration stories and articles here. Feel free to contact me if you would like me to add yours to the collection.

The Definition of Cruelty

The definition of the word cruel is “wilfully causing pain or suffering to others, or feeling no concern about it”. Separating children from their parents is just that: cruel.

I can tell you for a fact that no parent leaves their home with their child(ren) to make a dangerous and extremely difficult journey to another country for fun. It’s not a decision that any parent would make lightly. I’ve written about the border crossing experience before, a true life story from 15 or so years ago, and it’s not something that anyone does just because they woke up that day feeling like taking a little trip somewhere. The conditions of immigrant detention centers are a lot worse today, bordering, and frequently crossing the border of, inadmissible. Prisons are a major business in the US, and immigrant detention centers are also part of this business. People are held for days, weeks, years even, in cells and cages, some even in tents, in freezing cold and boiling hot temperatures, without the ability to communicate with family and friends outside the centers. I’ve known people to disappear suddenly and reappear again 6 months or so later, unceremoniously dumped on the other side of the border. What good is it to anyone to detain someone for so long for the sole act of trying to walk across the border? Because it’s a business, and many people are profiting from it.

Obviously immigration detention centers have never been “nice” places to stay, and undocumented immigrants were arrested before Trump was elected president. However, the spike in arrests and deportations of law-abiding people, people who have been here for decades, and the deterioration of conditions in detention centers are just some of the proof that this current administration’s agenda is more about dehumanizing the non-white immigrant, demonizing entire populations, and targeting those who are the most innocent, than actually making the country a safer place.

The family separation policy is not even a law, but already over 2,000 children have already been separated from their families at the border, breastfeeding babies included, in less than 6 weeks. The administration has created a loophole in the system, deeming that every person who crosses the border illegally should be prosecuted, and as you cannot let a child go to jail with their parents they are taken from them and thrown in detention centers, often under horrific circumstances. It is then up to their parents to find them and get them out again, usually with little help or recourse to help. Also, if you have been following what’s been going on in Congress for the past year or so you will have noticed that when it comes to immigration policies, hardcore Republicans have been using immigrants as bargaining chips to get what they want. Up until now it was the Dreamers, but you can be sure that it will soon be immigrant children and how they are separated from their parents. “If you give us the wall we will let the kids stay with their parents”.

We all know this is completely immoral, wrong, insanely disgusting, cruel, and abhorrent. I don’t need to explain why, because those who are up in arms about this know full well why, and those who aren’t are not only being gaslit by their government, they also won’t change their minds anyway. For centuries this country (and many other European countries for that matter) have been in the habit of dehumanizing races other than white in order to maintain white supremacy, so the sheer amount of people who are able to look away from the inhuman practice shouldn’t be that surprising. This should however just make us want to fight all the more to make sure these policies and this government are run into the ground.

Those who are throwing up their arms in mock outrage proclaiming how “unamerican” this policy is need to understand that it has existed for centuries. Children of slaves were taken from their mothers (while their mothers were forced to nurse white babies), Native American kids were removed from their homes and shoved into boarding schools or adopted out into white families. And this is just the US. I don’t think we need to explain how the Nazis in Germany separated children from their parents. It was one of the first things they did when they rounded up families. Or what Stalin’s officers did when they were rounding up Poles and sending them to Siberia in 1939-40. It’s not that we don’t learn from history, it’s just that we seem to refuse to believe that atrocities can happen again, so they just keep on happening, hashtag “no more” and “never again”.  

This isn’t just Trump though, it is also all of those people who are around him, all of those people who have been waiting in the sidelines for their moment to arrive. Remember, Hitler himself didn’t come up with the “Final Solution” (mass extermination of Jewish people): Himmler, Goering, and Heydrich were the ones who devised the main plans. We have to be aware of all of these people, some of which were elected a long time ago, way before Trump. Keep an eye on people like Stephen Miller for example. It’s in everyone’s best interest to know who is representing us. It’s even more important that those of us who are immigrants know who are representing us (and not representing us at all).

Saying that, I noticed something a long time ago, but it’s become way more apparent now... So many immigrants from Europe whose situation is considered “safe” lower their eyes and look away when you try to talk about immigration policies and human rights issues with them. They wave their green flag far and wide on social media, but if you ask them to sign a petition or join a march they disappear. I don’t think it’s because they don’t care, but their “safety” is a privilege that they don’t want to lose: “we are OK now, we can’t afford to think of others”. Thing is they never really had to fear ICE knocking on their door, never had to fear losing their children, their livelihood, their lives anyway. It’s a privilege that makes me slightly sick. There is also often that back thought of “well you know you could have done it the “right” way”. I’ve seen it flash in people’s eyes when I tell my story or when I tell someone else’s story. Privilege. Even as an immigrant it is your fundamental right in this country to benefit from freedom of speech, and you cannot be penalized for standing up against what is wrong. Every voice counts when it comes to rising up and fighting against injustice. A lot of what is happening in this country hits very close to home for my family, and I can’t just stand back and watch it happening just because I finally have a green card. No one is safe.

This is why I ask ALL immigrants to stand up and fight against each and every damning immigration policy. Especially those who have their green cards, or those who are naturalized. As I said, no one is really safe.

“This is what happens when you operate on emotions” is a phrase that caught my eye on Twitter this past weekend, a phrase voiced by a troll trying to tell us all that separating families is OK. But if we don’t operate on emotions then we cannot claim to be humans anymore, can we? If a child crying for their parents doesn’t make YOUR heart hurt then there is something intrinsically wrong with you. If you believe that one person has more rights than another based on where they were born then you are just perpetrating the hate that is rotting our existence from the core. If we use our privilege and standing to hurt and destroy others rather than protect and aid them then we are the problem. But staying silent and turning our heads away from everything that is happening makes us just as complicit. The only solution I see is standing up and fighting against all of this.

It’s not enough to just share articles on social media or talk about it with friends. We need to STAND UP AND RAISE OUR VOICES. Here are some ways to help. But really, keep calling and writing to your representatives, and ask them to support Senator Feinstein’s Keep Families Together Act. Even if your representatives are aligned with your beliefs write to them anyway: the more support they have the harder they will fight.

Apathy is the bane of our society. We have to be better at protecting each other.

You can read all of my immigration stories and articles HERE. If you are interested in having your own story told, please don’t hesitate to contact me!

We Marched and Now we Fight

I don’t think that anyone can deny how amazing the marches were this past Saturday, millions of women, and men, and children, coming together in cities all over the US, AND all over the world, to march for equality, for human rights and to make our voices HEARD. And they were heard, but whether they were actually listened to is an entirely other question and one that we need to ask ourselves every day. In my opinion this was only the beginning, now every day we need to take action: call, write, discuss, and never let anyone shut you up.

I found it quite telling that on Friday when my mother posted #notmypresident on social media, a white male told her to shut up and another told her to grow up. And yes, we are all free to say what we want, but it was a little ironic that it had to be a man telling a woman to “shut up” because she dared to voice her opinion. My sister posted the same hashtag and received messages from people she didn’t even know to “go back to where she came from”. So as women we are meant to “shut up” and as immigrants we are meant to “accept it or fuck off”. Or even better “you are OK because you did it the right way”. Because, of course, there are “right” immigrants and “wrong” ones… Although, having been “both” I can tell you that you will never know who is what, because funnily enough there are only grey areas in immigration.

I have been reading many articles discussing the marches and their impact on social media, and was a little perplexed by the sheer amount of women discrediting them and telling us that “we all had equal rights anyway and we should just stop crying and work harder if we weren’t making enough money”. Well, thankfully, millions of us aren’t so self-absorbed, and stood up for not only ourselves but for every other woman on this planet. Women in Kenya were marching for their rights to own property and to end genital mutilation and for our rights too, together, as sisters (thanks Cara!)! We stood up together, as one. And if you can’t understand that, then I can’t understand you either. There have been some really awesome posts in response to all of the backlash already, so I won’t add to that, but if you can’t see past your own privilege then you live in a very, very small and whitewashed world.

So what are the next steps? It can’t stop here. Every day I see a new order being signed, and a new freedom disappearing. Our planet, our rights, our fellow humans are all in danger, and we can stop it. But this means apathy is NOT an option. I want my kids to be able to visit orangutans in their natural habitat, to ride horses along the ocean and to breathe in fresh air. I want my fellow humans and animals to be able to drink water that has not been contaminated. I want to always be able to say what I think out loud without being worried about being shut down. I want my kids to always be proud of their mixed heritage and not live in fear. I want to see everyone treated as equals, no matter who they are and how much money they have. I want many things, but mainly I want us to fight for what is right, and what is right for those around us. I may not have the right to vote in this country but I DO have a voice. This week I will be writing letters to my senators, Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, and every week from now on I will be writing letters to my representatives. I will call, and talk and write and motivate. I will continue to teach my kids to question everything. I sometimes have difficulties finding the right words when I am talking, but writing is my tool and my art, and I will use it in more ways than one to make my voice heard.

Yesterday Dianne Feinstein’s office asked for any of us who had participated in the marches in California to send a quick email describing why we marched, so that she could use some of the examples in her opening statement in the Senate today. I feel like what I sent describes exactly what I feel. (I could have added a lot more but they only asked for 2-4 sentences).

“I marched because I am a survivor of sexual assault; an immigrant who spent years and years not being able to join the rest of my family here because I happened to be 21 when they immigrated together; the partner of a Mexican immigrant, and the mother of two beautiful British-Mexican US citizen girls. I marched because I want them to always be proud of who they are, and to always stand up for others who are not able to use their voices. I marched because I believe we are all equal, no matter where we were born, what the colour of our skin is, what our religion is, what our gender is and who we fall in love with is. I marched because my eldest was born with a heart defect and without access to consistent cardiology appointments she may one day fall down and die, appointments that we can only afford with affordable healthcare. And finally I marched for all of my sisters, because together we are stronger.”

My eldest daughter, nearly three years old, demanded to walk on Saturday, and ran, skipped, clapped and sang her way to the Capitol. My youngest laughed all the way, comfortable in her stroller seat. Both girls were calm and excited, and enjoyed being part of this huge gathering. I am very glad that they got to experience this with me and with their auntie, friends and millions of other women all over the world. This is only the beginning. Now please, get writing and calling and demanding to be heard.

If you are interested in continuing the fight but don't know where to start here are some helpful resources:

Women's March: 10 Actions / 100 Days

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

Find your US Congress Representative

Contact Your Senator

Thanks to Jenny for this one!

And thanks again to Jen for this!

Thank to Jen for this one!

Thanks to Jen for this!

Ramblings: Women Against Feminism?!?!

Definitely more ramblings than structured essay, a sort of rant but mainly an observation stemming from something that angered me when I first saw it and now just saddens me.

When I think back to myself as a teenager I see a shy girl unafraid of discovering life, experimenting and living, experiencing and learning – basically doing what every teenager does. I was taught to always aim for my dreams, that everyone was equal no matter what their skin colour, background, family, gender, sexual orientation were, and that it was important to fight for one’s rights, for freedom and for our own personal views. Obviously we would never have had to do that if oppression, inequality, prejudice and racism were not deeply rooted issues in this world, and by still fighting against these problems, and teaching our children to fight against them, at least we can tell ourselves that maybe someday things will be a little bit better. I will always keep that hope, no matter what. When I was a teenager the Riot Grrrl movement was also in full swing and we had no issues with stomping about in our Doc Martens and dresses screaming along to the lyrics of Rebel Girl. I have posted Kathleen Hanna's Riot Grrrl Manifesto at the end of the post, as it is still so valid today, nearly 25 years later. Nowadays my views and aims are a tad more sophisticated but pretty much still amount to the same thing. And I still wear dresses and Doc Martens.

I was horrified when I came across that Women Against Feminism website that went viral this month. I wanted to write about it, as I do with anything that upsets me, but at the same time I was loathe to give it any more publicity than it had already had. Then again, what I say isn’t going to stop people from posting their views on the site, but I do hope that one day my daughter will read this and thank me for bringing her up in the same way that I was brought up.

I’ve had time to think a bit more deeply about the subject and ask myself why such a website would even exist in the first place. If these women are so intent on saying why they are against Feminism, then what image of Feminism do they have in the first place? If you read through some of the posts it appears that the whole idea of Feminism has been so distorted that Feminists have now become “angry vaginas” who are against women staying at home to raise their children, who disrespect men, or more accurately hate men and tend to go on men-bashing rants and who don’t think it’s a good thing to dress in a feminine way (??!!!). Yes. I feel like I have missed something along the way. Have I just been so out of the loop on everything and not realised that women today have forgotten about the past and think that equal rights no longer need to exist? When did the satirical image of a Feminist become what other women actually really think is a Feminist?! When did Feminism become something women would publicly fight against? What did the movement do so wrongly that women feel the need to post about it on a website?

I think it all really boils down to this phrase, taken from a quote on the website, “In the United States women have the same opportunities as men”. I fundamentally don’t agree with that statement, however that is besides the point right now. Yes, maybe it appears that in this country men and women have equal opportunities, in the very, very near past this was definitely not the case. Maybe because in this day and age women have the right to vote, use contraception, marry and divorce multiple times, have children without being married, work the same jobs as men and aim for the same dreams as men, people tend to forget that not that long ago this wasn’t so. Have these women forgotten what their ancestors went through so that we could live like this today? Do I need to remind anyone that women have only been allowed to vote in the US for less than 100 years? Also, if I remember correctly, the Suffragettes wore dresses and were pretty feminine (unless the images and photographs from the time were doctored of course, ahem). (The latter is not a serious argument but meant as a light joke, based on the assumption that Feminists are not allowed to be feminine – you only need to read a few of the posts to see that this is a common reasoning for being against Feminism).

So basically what I am trying to say is that on the one hand the Feminist movement needs a serious image revamp, and on the other hand people need to be given a more accurate view of what Feminism has given them. If so many women think so badly of a movement that gave them the rights they take for granted today, then somehow the message has been perverted into something it isn’t anymore. Being a Feminist is not about forcing people to all feel the same way about different topics, but about being proud to be a woman and for continuing to fight for what you think is right. I’m proud to be a woman, I love wearing dresses, I am currently a stay at home mum and I will gladly stomp all over any document that declares that I do not have the right to decide what to do with my reproductive organs.

“I’m not represented by women who dress up like vaginas”. Um what? How does one dress up like a vagina?! After reading through some pages on the website I now have the image of a Feminist being a woman dressed as a vagina (?!) wearing combat trousers and boots and a tank top, with a buzz cut and screaming about how men are evil and married women are stupid. See what I mean about Feminism having a bad rep? Where did this come from? I have to say that as a Feminist my vagina is pretty much happy most of the time (apart from around the time I gave birth – I would say that I had a pretty angry vagina after that). “I don’t need Feminism because my boyfriend treats me right”… Why does that mean you don’t need Feminism? My boyfriend treats me right too, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to stand up for other women who are being mistreated or abused! I feel like a lot of the comments on this website come from misinformation and misinterpretations. And also of a lack of willingness to look back and understand what Feminism really means (although there are some who do specify “modern Feminism” which shows that at least they are not against the movement that gave them the rights they have today, just against what the movement has become in their eyes, which kind of validates what I have been saying).

I’ve written a few posts about the subject in the past, and instead of going on a continuous rant about why the Women Against Feminism site angers and saddens me, I will post a slightly edited version of a piece I wrote in 2005 just below. I think that post stemmed from coming across something that angered me too! Of course, everyone is entitled to have their own opinions, and this is mine. The original post can be found here. (See below to links to other articles).

I Was Born a Woman

I didn’t get into Feminism. There is no real moment in my life that I can say “that’s when I became a Feminist”. I was born into it.

I was born a woman. I was going to be either a boy or a girl and I pulled the girl straw. No choice, no plan, no nothing. So there you go, you accept it and you live with it and you learn to be happy with what you’ve got. I never wished I were a boy. I never even dreamt about being a boy. I never wondered what it would be like to live as a boy for a day. I’m damn proud to be a woman. Just as I would be damn proud of being a man if I had been born a man.

Feminism is not about being superior, or better, or worse. It’s not a closed discussion about how women are fighting against men. We all share this world, and it’s up to us to accept the fact that we are all different, to accept that everybody has different bodies, minds, faces and opinions. Feminism is about being a woman and being proud of whom you are. All humans are equal. It’s up to each and every one of us to fight for the consistency of this equality.

I can’t say how I “got into Feminism”. It’s always been a part of me. From a very early age both my mother and my father instilled deep in my heart the need to stand up for my rights and for my thoughts. Strong women constantly surrounded me. My whole family is full of strong women. We have not had it easy, but we have always managed to get over every mountain, build bridges over every river and make the most of every straight path. So I think it is right to say that I was born into a Feminist family and make every effort to continue this line.

For me Feminism is not about ranting about how women are so much better than men, about how we should rule the world and about how we should stomp out men and male dominance.

No. Feminism is what you want it to be. In my opinion Feminism is regarded too often as something pejorative, and this is because of the way it is portrayed. Annoyingly, Feminism is looked down upon and challenged while, even today, male chauvinism is still accepted and seen as normal. This doesn’t mean that we are supposed to jump up and call all men pigs, but it means that it is up to us women to prove that we are not trying to show that we are better, but that we are trying to prove we are equal and therefore should have equal rights everywhere. We can get rid of the acceptance of chauvinism in society and move on to a new, more equal world where women don’t have to constantly fight.

Apart from the close female figures in my life; my grandmother who bought up her first three children on her own during the Second World War, who outlived her four husbands and lived to tell her tales long after the age of 90; my mother who battled violent and addicted men and who has always been a role model and who shows everyone that they can accomplish anything in life; and then a special woman that I have never met. She’s been by my side since I first came across her on my tenth birthday, and since then has been a constant influence. Her name is Marge Piercy and she is a Feminist and political poet and novelist. Her characters are always strong and rounded, but not without flaws. Real women who have to deal with the struggles of everyday life, who sometimes make the right choice, sometimes the wrong one, but they never let society pull them down. Whenever I feel that it is all getting too much, I pick up one of Marge Piercy’s writings and she helps me believe in myself again. We all have our own demons; it’s up to us to choose whether to fight or to flee.

As women have to deal with so much, learning to accept who we are and why we are, accepting our bodies, our wants and our needs, and learning to understand that although what we want might often be frowned upon, there is no need to not go out there and get it.

Feminism is all about being a woman and fighting for it. You want to have sex, have sex. You don’t want to sleep around? Then don’t! You want to have a career? Have one! You want to be a housewife, and stay at home to bring up your kids? Then do just that! We have to choose what is right for us, without letting pre-assigned unwritten and ancient social “laws” bring you down.

Feminism is not about fighting men, but about fighting for what’s right for YOU. This is what Feminism is to me. Being a woman is a right, and it’s up to us to make the most out of it.

We only live once, why not make the best of it, and be able to live to tell the tale to the next generations.

Be strong and be real. And never keep your mouth shut. Because once you have said it out loud someone is going to hear.

An article I wrote in 2012 questioning why people were trying to take away my rights to decide what I did with my body: Why are people trying to take my right to choose away?

An article I wrote in 2013 about the "Traditional Sense of Marriage"

An excellent article written by my friend Cristiana Bedei on how blogging gives women an opportunity to express themselves in a way that they could not before: The Discreet Power of Blogging is Allowing Women to Express their Expertise

Kathleen Hanna's Riot Grrrl Manifesto - still so fucking valid today!!!